WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:14.440 This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3,930 for Friday the 25th of August 2023. 00:14.440 --> 00:20.080 Today's show is entitled, Playing Civilization 2 Test of Time. 00:20.080 --> 00:24.440 It is hosted by Ahukah and is about 12 minutes long. 00:24.440 --> 00:27.000 It carries a clean flag. 00:27.000 --> 00:41.320 The summary is some hints for playing Civilization 2 Test of Time. 00:41.320 --> 00:47.760 Hello and welcome to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in my series on 00:47.760 --> 00:51.120 my history with strategy gaming. 00:51.120 --> 00:57.440 And what I want to talk about today is a Civilization 2 Test of Time. 00:57.440 --> 01:04.840 Now, I have noted that the various versions of Civ have each had expansions, generally two of 01:04.840 --> 01:09.800 them, before a whole new version came out. 01:09.800 --> 01:12.600 And that is true for Civilization 2. 01:12.600 --> 01:15.680 Normally, I don't cover them separately. 01:15.680 --> 01:21.760 I prefer this point to look back at the final version of each after all of the expansions, 01:21.760 --> 01:25.560 but test of time is the exception. 01:25.560 --> 01:33.120 Now Civ 2 was developed by Brian Reynolds and Jeff Briggs with some help from Sidmyr at 01:33.120 --> 01:35.520 Microproze. 01:35.520 --> 01:41.000 But shortly after the game was released, all three of them left microproze. 01:41.000 --> 01:48.100 If you care, you can read all about it, and there's a book, Sidmyr's wrote, called Sidmyr's 01:48.100 --> 01:58.000 memoir, and I've got a link in the show notes if you want to check that book out. 01:58.000 --> 02:03.860 And this involved Microproze getting bought up by other companies, rights getting tossed 02:03.860 --> 02:06.440 around and such. 02:06.440 --> 02:11.840 Meanwhile, the three main people from Microproze founded a company called Ferrexus, 02:11.840 --> 02:14.840 F-I-R-A-X-I-S. 02:14.840 --> 02:21.360 So, a test of time did not directly involve Sidmyr, Brian Reynolds, or Jeff Briggs. 02:21.360 --> 02:23.960 They'd all gone. 02:23.960 --> 02:29.920 Still when Civilization Chronicles was released, which I'm glad I have, a test of time 02:29.920 --> 02:31.320 was included. 02:31.320 --> 02:34.800 So it is still part of the family in some sense. 02:34.800 --> 02:39.280 And I spent many hours playing it, and very happily. 02:39.280 --> 02:45.640 The name of this, a test of time, is a play on the original Sidv opening screens, which 02:45.640 --> 02:51.440 ask you if you could build a civilization to stand the test of time. 02:51.440 --> 02:56.640 Now, there's two things that set a test of time apart from Sidv 2. 02:56.640 --> 02:58.480 First, the artwork is different. 02:58.480 --> 03:03.320 This is purely a visual thing, which may or may not matter to you. 03:03.320 --> 03:08.920 If two had very bright colors, well, test of time has more subdued colors. 03:08.920 --> 03:12.280 And the unit icons are different, and so on. 03:12.280 --> 03:17.560 There are some other minor differences, but you might not even notice them. 03:17.560 --> 03:21.200 The gameplay is really the same up to a point. 03:21.200 --> 03:26.280 You have four possible game selections, plus a scenario. 03:26.280 --> 03:31.200 When you start up test of time, the first is the original game, which is just the 03:31.200 --> 03:35.520 test of two you are used to, but with the new graphics. 03:35.520 --> 03:39.840 But it is the other three options that make this game something different. 03:39.840 --> 03:46.200 And all three hinge on a new game mechanic never used again to allow multiple maps within 03:46.200 --> 03:48.200 one game. 03:48.200 --> 03:50.640 You should think of these as layers. 03:50.640 --> 03:57.000 Each layer has to have the exact same dimensions, so that when stacked a tile on one 03:57.000 --> 04:00.400 layer matches up with a tile on another layer. 04:00.400 --> 04:05.880 Of course there has to be a way of moving from one layer to another. 04:05.880 --> 04:12.640 Now extended original game, this is one of the new options. 04:12.640 --> 04:17.120 And your first clue that something is different is when you see alien names for a few 04:17.120 --> 04:19.280 of the civs available. 04:19.280 --> 04:24.800 You could even decide to play one of those alien civs, though I don't recommend it. 04:24.800 --> 04:30.360 The alien civ is there to provide an added challenge when you get to Alpha Centauri. 04:30.360 --> 04:35.240 So if you actually play as the alien civ, you will have a very boring game since you 04:35.240 --> 04:38.440 won't have any opponents to play off of. 04:38.440 --> 04:43.440 Still there will be one alien civ in the game, that is the point. 04:43.440 --> 04:47.480 And you will see that the alien civ may even build a wonder too. 04:47.480 --> 04:54.280 Now this alien civ resides at Alpha Centauri, and you will ultimately meet it if you land 04:54.280 --> 04:56.600 colonists there. 04:56.600 --> 05:00.920 But for most of the game this doesn't matter other than occasional news notes of what 05:00.920 --> 05:04.040 the alien civ has done. 05:04.040 --> 05:09.160 As in the original civ too game, you will build your cities, build your units, research 05:09.160 --> 05:12.200 technologies, and so on. 05:12.200 --> 05:16.560 You could even go for a conquest victory, but that would make no sense. 05:16.560 --> 05:21.800 The whole point of extended original is to get to Alpha Centauri. 05:21.800 --> 05:27.000 I have played games where I conquered everything but one lonely opposition city so that I could 05:27.000 --> 05:30.120 keep going to get to Alpha Centauri. 05:30.120 --> 05:35.840 This unlocks a whole new tech tree and now you battle the Centaurians as well as any other 05:35.840 --> 05:38.640 opponents still in the game. 05:38.640 --> 05:42.760 So at this point suddenly you have shifted to a conquest victory. 05:42.760 --> 05:48.800 You can unlock technologies that you move back and forth between the two planets. 05:48.800 --> 05:54.000 But they only work on some tiles, you'll eventually figure out that a land unit moving 05:54.000 --> 06:00.360 between the planets can not move to a forbidden tile on the other one like a sea tile. 06:00.360 --> 06:05.120 So it's got to be land to land or sea to sea. 06:05.120 --> 06:08.480 And of course vice versa. 06:08.480 --> 06:13.960 Victory happens when you've wiped out all the opposition. 06:13.960 --> 06:23.200 Now another new option is something they call the science fiction game, which is a scenario. 06:23.200 --> 06:28.080 This game starts off with the scenario of an earth expedition to another star system that 06:28.080 --> 06:36.720 ends up in the Leland 21185 system and crash lands on the second planet fune estus. 06:36.720 --> 06:41.560 Of course the humans are split into factions that operate as separate cives in this game, 06:41.560 --> 06:47.560 such like Althus and Tori, which was released around the same time by the original team 06:47.560 --> 06:51.720 from microproes who had moved on to for access. 06:51.720 --> 06:58.040 Now there is also a nonhuman race crashed on the same planet. 06:58.040 --> 07:02.680 By researching the appropriate technologies the two races learned to communicate with each 07:02.680 --> 07:06.120 other and then to move around the system. 07:06.120 --> 07:11.480 The first layer you unlock that you visit orbiting platforms above the planet, which 07:11.480 --> 07:17.680 were built and left there by the original Lelandian inhabitants, then eventually to two other 07:17.680 --> 07:20.720 planets in the system. 07:20.720 --> 07:23.800 One nomakia is a rocky planet. 07:23.800 --> 07:30.080 The other is a gas giant called Nona, which is the original home of the Lelandians. 07:30.080 --> 07:35.560 Again you have the science versus conquest option for winning, wiping out all opposition in 07:35.560 --> 07:39.040 the Leland system will give you a conquest win. 07:39.040 --> 07:44.160 Before you have a couple of ways to get a science victory, either send a spaceship, back 07:44.160 --> 07:50.440 to Earth or build a quantum gate back to Earth. 07:50.440 --> 07:56.160 Next we have the Midgard scenario. 07:56.160 --> 08:01.040 As a scenario this is not intended to be something you play over and over, though you can 08:01.040 --> 08:06.400 if you like, but it was a good sandbox for developing the fantasy game which will discuss 08:06.400 --> 08:07.400 next. 08:07.400 --> 08:14.160 Now in the Midgard scenario you have a story heavily based on Norse, Slavic, and Celtic 08:14.160 --> 08:16.160 mythology. 08:16.160 --> 08:20.600 For example, Ragnarok appears in the scenario. 08:20.600 --> 08:29.920 You have seven races, elves, mervouc, goblins, humans, infidels, who are also human, but 08:29.920 --> 08:39.600 a different faction, Buteo, which is birds, and Stigians, who which are the undead. 08:39.600 --> 08:45.200 The story in the scripted scenario revolves around an ancient evil wizard of all sang, 08:45.200 --> 08:50.480 who has locked away many centuries ago and now has been forgotten. 08:50.480 --> 08:56.320 But he is growing in strength and has just started marshalling evil forces to attack the 08:56.320 --> 08:57.960 world. 08:57.960 --> 09:01.640 You play one of the seven races and try to fight back. 09:01.640 --> 09:06.160 In this scenario there are four levels or maps. 09:06.160 --> 09:13.960 The surface world, the cloud world, the underground world, and the undersea world. 09:13.960 --> 09:18.440 As you can imagine different worlds are most suited to different races, so you are starting 09:18.440 --> 09:23.800 location will be determined by the race you choose to play. 09:23.800 --> 09:28.040 Now winning the scenario can happen in four ways. 09:28.040 --> 09:32.440 You can build a siege engine that conquers all evil. 09:32.440 --> 09:39.560 You can discover by-frost from the Norse myths, or complete ten quests, which will also reveal 09:39.560 --> 09:42.160 by-frost but without all the research. 09:42.160 --> 09:46.920 Or you can just wipe out all the competition, that is always available. 09:46.920 --> 09:49.920 And a note about the gameplay. 09:49.920 --> 09:54.320 You might think from the scenario set up that the races will join together to defeat the 09:54.320 --> 09:57.400 forces of evil, but that does not happen. 09:57.400 --> 10:03.040 You are in conflict to some degree with all of the others in addition to battery battling 10:03.040 --> 10:07.320 of all sang's minions. 10:07.320 --> 10:16.120 Then, the fantasy game itself, this builds upon the mid-guards scenario, but removes the scripted 10:16.120 --> 10:18.800 element and the ten quests. 10:18.800 --> 10:28.720 You have the same 7 races, the same 4 layers, slash maps, but it is now open-ended in terms 10:28.720 --> 10:30.320 of gameplay. 10:30.320 --> 10:33.320 Every race has its natural starting point. 10:33.320 --> 10:39.560 For humans, infidels, which is a second human group, and elves, their natural place 10:39.560 --> 10:42.320 is the surface world. 10:42.320 --> 10:46.960 Butios are a bird race, so the clouds is their natural home. 10:46.960 --> 10:52.480 Our folk, of course, thrive in the undersea world, while goblins and stigians are at home 10:52.480 --> 10:54.280 underground. 10:54.280 --> 10:59.120 But from the beginning, every race has access to the surface world. 10:59.120 --> 11:02.800 As you progress, you learn to access other worlds. 11:02.800 --> 11:07.480 And this applies that if you pick the butios, or the morphoke, you will have a space 11:07.480 --> 11:10.400 all to your own for a while. 11:10.400 --> 11:16.640 Whereas if you pick humans, infidels, or elves, you can expect a lot of interaction, conflict. 11:16.640 --> 11:20.080 From the early stages. 11:20.080 --> 11:27.400 Victory conditions are building the siege engine, discovering by frost, or wiping out all 11:27.400 --> 11:29.800 opposition. 11:29.800 --> 11:36.360 So in summary, a test of time is really just an expansion of the Siv 2 game, not a version, 11:36.360 --> 11:37.360 in itself. 11:37.360 --> 11:42.360 At one time, I played out a lot, because the extended original offered even more playing 11:42.360 --> 11:44.280 time in some additional challenge. 11:44.280 --> 11:47.160 But it's not a big advance. 11:47.160 --> 11:52.680 The one thing that set it apart was the multiple maps feature, and while I enjoyed it, 11:52.680 --> 11:56.360 it has never been picked up in subsequent versions. 11:56.360 --> 12:00.840 I think you can include that it is not a gameplay feature that other developers wanted 12:00.840 --> 12:02.720 to work with. 12:02.720 --> 12:06.160 Now you can get test of time in a variety of ways. 12:06.160 --> 12:14.240 I have it in the Civilization Chronicles box set, which I don't think is available for 12:14.240 --> 12:24.240 purchase in stores anymore, but you might be able to find one on eBay or similar. 12:24.240 --> 12:29.240 And then, of course, there's the original CD-ROM version that, again, you might be able 12:29.240 --> 12:33.960 to find on eBay or other used places. 12:33.960 --> 12:36.280 But also, I put a link in the show notes. 12:36.280 --> 12:40.680 You can find it at myabandonware.com. 12:40.680 --> 12:44.640 So you've got some options, if anything, I've said here, strikes your fancy, and you 12:44.640 --> 12:47.200 think you want to check it out. 12:47.200 --> 12:51.840 You can get it, and maybe you can have some fun with it. 12:51.840 --> 12:59.000 I certainly spent a lot of hours on this game, and you might enjoy it as well. 12:59.000 --> 13:04.680 So, this is a hookup for Hacker Public Radio signing off, and is always encouraging you 13:04.680 --> 13:06.560 to support free software. 13:06.560 --> 13:07.440 Bye-bye. 13:07.440 --> 13:15.680 You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. 13:15.680 --> 13:21.000 Today's show was contributed by 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